>>24520557 (OP)Adam Smith's theory of moral sentiments is what I'd recommend to read, because it elaborates on the favorability of capitalism (or commercial society, as the intellectual niggas like to call it) and explains why people chase the dough, and it is, I think, well-written.
On the one hand, Smith says they chase money because we naturally value authority. Authority can come from multiple places, such as authority of specific occupation (e.g. expertise through division of labor), or authority of the judge or something, but there's also authority in wealth. ie. most people look to the wealthy as possessing superior qualities that would have made them well-off, and suckers tend to chase wealth because they want to be seen as possessing authority. These morons, however, do not understand that displays of wealth is not what matters to the people that matter (I mean family, actual friends, and such), so they give up their lives chasing something that does not matter for people who do not think it matters so that they can peacocks the authority they sought to random people that don't matter. We call these suckers nouveau riche for their conspicuous consumption. In short, it's a character flaw to chase money.
On the other hand, Smith likes it that they chase money because these poor suckers who value "baubles and trinkets" (displays of comparative wealth) drag along all the po people into better lives. Smith says somewhere that no African king with a thousand slaves lives as good as the poorest wageslave in Europe because the jealous idiots who give up their lives for wealth accumulation drag along - like an invisible hand - the poor schmucks without moolah into better living conditions.
This was in short the value of commercial society for Smith, and I think in broad lines it still explains behavior of comparative wealth seekers very well. If you always chase the object of cash, you have no idea what is valuable besides the instantly measurable moolah, until maybe, you come closer to death or something, and start valuing the people that matter, or start to do the stuff you like. If it is day trading you like and hot babes, then go at it. But as you say, the inhumanity dominates, and this is merely the self-neglect, discipline, or paper chase, however you wanna call it, that is their shallow personality. And if everything you're occupied with has an objective comparative number attached to it, then you start to judge everything else like it as well, I guess.
